Nagisa-san took me aside to meet someone, explaining that the woman wanted to ask me a question, and that she would help by translating some of her expressions into English. After a brief introduction, the woman spoke in enough Japanese that I could understand most of what she was asking. I could feel the anguish in her voice. But why was she asking me?
—

In the summer of 2013, after finishing up on one final job for a now defunct ship-builder in South Korea, I celebrated my retirement by meeting my husband in Okinawa. One of the reasons for traveling there, aside from it being a wonderful place and culture in which to simply relax and explore, was to indulge my husband in something that rather interested him at the time, the history of Okinawan castles.

To facilitate a chronological tour of the main island’s various castles, or what remains of them, we hired out a taxi driver who turned out to be an expert on just that topic. And for two days, he drove us up and down the island, guiding a series of impressively detailed private tours while I dutifully explained technicalities in English to cover for my husband’s somewhat limited command of Japanese. It was a strange feeling, tracing perhaps two-thousand years of history under the footsteps of a mere two days.
—

Okinawa is presently considered a prefecture of Japan. But historically, it was the “Ryukyu Kingdom”, a string of islands extending from southern Japan to the island of Formosa, or present day “Taiwan”. The islands are thought to have been inhabited for 20 to 30 thousand years, from a time when lower sea-levels exposed now submerged ridges that would have connected Japan with the Asian Mainland. The islands’ earliest occupants were likely the paleolithic ancestors of Japan’s indigenous “Ainu” people, with various later seafaring migrations adding to its diversity.

Combining these influences, the Ryukyuan people developed their own languages, including several localized dialects.  These languages share commonalities with Japanese; however, they are not mutually understandable.  Modern Japanese has become a contemporary standard across the island chain, but local Ryukyuan languages and dialects are still spoken by many native to the region.  And likewise, uniquely Ryukyuan religious beliefs developed over thousands of years are still followed by some.

Among significant aspects of the traditional Ryukyuan religious perspective was to view women as the bearers of a special connection between the earthly and spiritual domains.  Women were venerated for both their abilities to create new life by physically bringing together these realms, as well as their ability to protect the men of their society through their connection with the otherworld.  This resulted in a society in which women were the high priestesses of Ryukuan religion, and in which they held and maintained the bonds of full kinship to both families upon marriage.

The “Omoro Sōshi” are a collection of ancient Ryukuan songs.  Among them are songs of the “Onarigami” (“Unarikami” in the northern, “Amami” dialect), revered women with sacred access to the spiritual power, or “Shiji”, of the gods or “kami” of the skies over the land and sea.  Women of the Ryukyu islands were always treated as Onarigami by their male siblings, seen to possess the powers of a priestess or even a kind of goddess themselves, able to convey appeals for good fortune during times of peril.  But this spiritual connection also implied something more.

Among those women considered to have especially strong connections to the spiritual realm were the female shamans known as “Yuta”.   And it is still believed by some today that these women can communicate directly with either kami, or the spirits of ancestors.  Somehow, this characteristic had been attributed to me.
—

We met up with Nagisa-san and several of her friends at a restaurant in Naha. We’d first met each other many years earlier at Esalen, near Big Sur along the California coast. Nagisa-san had learned massage and worked as a massage practitioner there for several years. Eventually, she left for Okinawa where she had set up shop for herself.  But she had always remembered something I once shared with her.

For whatever reason, my dreams have always been populated by strangers, only very rarely hosting familiar faces from my waking life.  In fact, familiar faces are so rare that they will usually compel a call or an email to make sure things are okay.  But my dreams have no issue with rendering the faces of those with whom I can no longer speak in the corporeal world.  And I had once mentioned this peculiarity of my quiescent mind’s mental imagery to Nagisa-san.

It was a part of a conversation about how I had dreamed of my father for years after his death, during a time when I still needed him to be there for me.  After about three years, the dreams had become quite commonplace, though I’d long since worked things out.  So one night, I had finally said to my father, “You know that you’re dead… You’re not supposed to be here.”

“Sō desu ne,” he responded – a rhetorical, “Is that so?” That was last time we spoke.

And now this woman was looking across the table, wanting to know what her twin sister wanted to say to her.

I told her honestly that I could not hear her sister’s voice. I could only respond with what my father once told me when he was still alive. He believed in a collective consciousness, that the universe is awake through each person’s experience here, while we’re alive in this world. 

My father believed that we honor and we speak to our ancestors by adding our own experiences, our own feelings, joys and sorrows to the universe. Our duty to those who have passed is merely to allow ourselves and others to contribute to that awareness of being in the best way that we can.  It is the spirits who listen, through us.

I wished that I could have said more to this woman who had lost someone so close that it was as losing a part of herself. I understood her reach for answers in a place that can’t be touched, at least not by the logic of an apparently indifferent universe. But she seemed satisfied, at least with my honesty if nothing else. And if my father was right, then perhaps we really do speak to the spirits, and the women of the Ryukyu islands are indeed Onarigami.

—

Photo (top): The ruins of the 15th-century, “Katsuren-jô”, or Katsuren Castle.  It still hosts an active shrine of the Ryukyuan religion within the first bailey.

Vocal by: Ikue Asazaki
“Unarikami”, (“Yoisura Bushi”, Sailors’ Song)
Traditional folk song from the Amami Islands in present day Kagoshima prefecture.

Yoisura-bushi is a song of the Amami Islands that was also handed down to Okinawan tradition. It’s a song of protection for brothers or men who have gone out to sea, and is based on the belief in a god or, Onarigami [“Unarikami” in Amami dialect], who lives in sisters. A white bird or swan perched upon a ship’s stern is regarded as a symbol of Onarigami, and considered a good sign. The title of the song comes from the musical accompaniment of “Surayoisura”.

The verses were difficult to translate, but it’s the lament of a sailor on the high seas who wishes for a sister-goddess, or “Unari-kami” to worship for the blessings of good fortunes against the pull of the gods, or “kami”, who rule over the sky and the sea.

舟ぬ高艦に ヨイスラ  (Upon a high ship, Yoisura)
舟ぬ高艦に ヨイスラ  (Upon a high ship, Yoisura)
白鳥ぬ 坐ちゅり スラヨイスラヨイ  (No swan sitting, Sura Yoisura Yoi)
白鳥やあらぬ ヨイスラ  (The swan is not there, Yoisura)
白鳥やあらぬ ヨイスラ (The swan is not there, Yoisura)
姉妹神がなし スラヨイスラヨイ (Without a sister goddess [Unarikami].  Sura Yoisura Yoi)

汝きゃ拝む節や ヨイスラ  (I would worship you, Yoisura)
汝きゃ拝む節や ヨイスラ  (I would worship you, Yoisura)
…スラヨイスラ (Sura Yoisura)
夢やちゅんば見りゃぬ スラヨイスラヨイ  (Unseen in my dreams, Sura Yoisura Yoi)
神ぬ引きゃ合わせに ヨイスラ  (To match the pull of the gods, Yoisura)
神ぬ引きゃ合わせに ヨイスラ  (To match the pull of the gods, Yoisura)
…スラヨイスラ  (Sura Yoisura)
汝きゃばくま拝むでぃ スラヨイスラヨイ (The goddess I would worship.  Sura Yoisura Yoi)